


Old Wounds

by superdudezz



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Rewrite, F/F, Friends to Enemies to Lovers, Harun-El
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-06
Updated: 2019-11-17
Packaged: 2021-01-24 07:37:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21334597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/superdudezz/pseuds/superdudezz
Summary: 'We have concluded our first human trial. Test subject 0331 exhibited what could be considered extra-human powers for precisely three minutes and 14 seconds.'Lena took in a deep breath and steadied her voice before sitting up and continuing.'Time of preservation, 4:03 a.m. Secondary measures were enacted for precisely 20 seconds to prevent passing. Cryogenesis will prevent the expiration of the subject with the intent to undertake further human trials.'orThe one where Adam doesn't exactly die from the Harun El and we see what could have been
Relationships: Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor
Kudos: 14





	1. Try To See What They Could Be

**Author's Note:**

> Titles courtesy of PVRIS

The lights that shone through the city were getting duller as the sun started to peek through the horizon. Lcorp was empty since Lena had sent her security team home early that evening. They had been perplexed at her decision but hadn't said a word of protest. What Lena was doing wasn't technically illegal. She had filled out all the necessary paperwork and jumped through all the hoops. The protocol for human trials was rigid for most companies and research, but due to Lex's legacy, it was more flexible for people like Lena. She hated admitting when he was useful, but if he was going to be a stain on this city then she might as well try and use him for good. Even if the methods weren't exactly up to par with the standards of a certain superhero.

Lena sat at her desk in her office. She gripped the armrest of her chair trying to get her bearings of the events of the past few hours. There was an unopened bottle of scotch on the table practically staring at her. She tried to remember the breathing exercises Lex taught her when she was a child. One count in and three counts out. Or was it three counts in and one count out. It didn't matter, no amount of breathing exercises could slow her heart rate or make the tingling in her fingertips go away. Her mind was racing as seemingly random memories sprouted into the forefront of her mind.

Lillian chastising her for not being more objective on her English papers. Kara giving her a warm smile and a reassuring comment that dismissed her last name. A particularly frightening memory of Lex going on another rant about Superman and the future of mankind.

Lena felt like screaming, but she barely had the energy to open her eyes. She begged internally for everything to stop for a moment as she tried to gather her thoughts and figure out the next logical step. She picked up her voice recorder and took in a shaky breath before hitting record. Her voice sounded robotic and foreign to her as she spoke into the device.

_We have concluded our first human trial. Test subject 0331 exhibited what could be considered extra-human powers for precisely three minutes and 14 seconds. _

Lena took in a deep breath and steadied her voice before sitting up and continuing.

_Time of preservation, 4:03 a.m. Secondary measures were enacted for precisely 20 seconds to prevent passing. Cryogenesis will prevent the expiration of the subject with the intent to undertake further human trials. Despite the outcome of the subject, the trial reaped new and critical information on the human genome. Future trials run at an 87% probability of success. Payment will be sent to the subject's next of kin. _

Lena turned the device off and set it down lightly on her desk. She felt lightheaded even though she hadn't had a drop of alcohol. A quick glance at her watch told her why. She had been awake for almost 36 hours with only a couple of light meals in her. Prepping and almost losing Adam had been consuming enough.

She never meant to put him in cryogenesis and had prepared herself for potentially losing him. No, not potentially. Lena knew that he wouldn't survive this test trial and she went ahead with it anyway. She was prepared, at least she thought she was. Her boxes slipped for a moment and suddenly Test Subject 0331 wasn't just another lab rat. Lena knew Adam was special, that's why he was the only one to be selected for her experiment. He claimed that he didn't want to be a hero, but in the end, he was just that. Manufacturing superhero powers in a lab were relatively easy, but crafting a soul to carry them wasn't something a lab could whip up. He had opened up his darkest secrets and fears to her as if he'd been holding onto and carrying that pain alone. Lena knew what that felt like and had followed suit. You don't just open up to a stranger unless you're truly alone. She had revealed intimate details to him that she hadn't told anyone, even Kara. Lex would never have allowed himself to get so involved with a test subject. Adam was really just a means to an end. Seeing him on the table moments after the Harun-El were administered had been terrifying for her. His veins turned black and his eyes were empty as he convulsed. His vitals became dangerously unstable and she knew what would come next. It was a spur of the moment decision, Lena hadn't even realized what she had fully done until she made it back up to her office.

The cryogenesis was a separate project altogether that Lena had put on pause after taking over the company. The process was fairly straightforward as far as the technology goes. Put a body under certain freezing conditions to preserve the cell structure for future use. It was the application that Lena had felt uncomfortable with. Luthorcorp at the time had been intending on using cryogenics as another way for rich people to preserve themselves. This method intended on taking it a step further than body preservation and transplanting their consciousness into a fresh body. Where Lex planned on getting bodies to 'volunteer' was beyond Lena and she preferred not to think about it. The machines and technology were still in working order and had preserved Adam moments before he was too far gone.

Her mind had already blacked out almost everything that had happened. She was still in shock and had to really think to pull basic information like his name out of her brain. This wasn't something she could put into a box. She refused to throw this all away. The reality of this project had revealed itself to be bigger than her and no longer an abstract thought experiment. When the time was right she was going to help Adam and bring him back. Lena should have taken the intake test herself before going through with this experiment.

_I'm so sorry, Adam. _

_I moved the spider._


	2. I Feel A Fire

Lena remembered watching how Lex worked and the way it slowly consumed him as he got older. She never quite understood it until she left college. Sure she worked for her perfect grades and extracurriculars, but never so long that she forgot to eat or sleep. It wasn't until she started working on projects that truly interested her that she started to understand. In her younger years her goals were simple albeit difficult to meet. Her goals differed from the Luthors, they wanted an Olympic level fencer and Nobel prize-winning scientist. She just wished for their approval and in moments of weakness she hoped for their acceptance. Growing up, the motivation and drive had been mainly supplied by Lionel or Lillian and Lena had supplemented it with the work ethic that it took to achieve the level of perfection they strived for. Working on the nanobots with Jack had been the first time Lena had started to lose herself in her work. Jack had helped to keep her grounded, his love for food and a good drink always superseded the projects he worked on. At the time she had found it annoying, but looking back it was a remarkable quality to not be all consumed by the tasks at hand. Jack had always joked about how Lena never really knew when to half-ass something even being beautiful. It made her uncomfortable and Lena always brushed the comments aside. She could point out a million failures throughout her life to contradict him, but there was no point saying it aloud. After he passed she burrowed herself deeper in her work and deeper in her understanding of the way Lex operated. But she never quite seemed to get the mania that overtook him when he worked. It used to bring Lena a sense of peace that she'd never understood that side of her brother. A younger version of her strived for the level of dedication he had, but after he kept trying to kill her she realized that it was madness that drove him.

//

Lena silenced her 8 a.m. alarm for the second time and placed her phone face down on the workbench. She needed to head out to a board meeting at 8:30 and had spend most of last night working. She was so close to a breakthrough in stabilizing the Harun-El that she could practically see it. Lex's help on stabilizing unprocessed Harun-El in the body had been incredibly helpful in the moment, albeit incredibly difficult to replicate after. On top of that she couldn't figure out how to get rid of the side effects. Lena needed to improve the human body not create another Supergirl. The world had one too many of her. It had been two weeks since Lex had revealed Supergirl's identity Lena had felt numb and realized now more than ever the project she was working on needed to be finished as soon as possible. Her alarm rang out for a third time and Lena pulled herself away from the lab bench and took her coat off. The CEO of Lcorp couldn't be late to her own meeting and she needed to change her dress. Showing up to work on Monday in Friday's outfit would certainly turn some heads.

\---

Brainy had tried to explain to her a couple of weeks ago that his boxes method had nearly killed him. She didn't press into details, and she had brushed him off. Maybe it was cold and an sample of her hubris, but Lena's boxes had gotten her this far. She wasn't about to leave them now.

Suddenly it was all there, all at once.

Kara standing in front of her, telling her in no uncertain terms that she didn't tell Lena she was supergirl because she knew wanted Lena to love her. A hundred simulations could not have prepared her for this. She had made Kara guilty, angry, scared, indifferent, and downright mean. She had gone through the list of reasons why Kara would keep her secret from her. Lack of trust or protection were the primary reasons she posited that Kara had kept it quiet. Never out of _love._

Boxes

It had to be an easy out for her, to keep up her naive and self-righteous image. Lena replayed the confession over and over. Kara had been in tears on the verge of a complete break down over her. Nothing added up. It had to have been another one of Lex's games, to have her best friend love her so deeply.

Boxes

Kara had most likely discovered her plan to reveal her secret identity. Whatever game she was playing Lena could play tenfold. She gave her speech, a different one than planned. It had a little more truth to it than she would have hoped, but that's what she got for improvising. Afterwards, she held Kara and told her she would always be her best friend. She looked her in her eyes as she spoke, she saw a flicker of pain cross Kara's eyes. It was the response she wanted, but it left her feeling sick to her stomach. Lena left the theater as soon as the DEO allowed her to. Doubt was seeping deep into Lena's bones. Luthors never doubt.

Boxes

Instead of going to her office to finish her work like she usually did to avoid her wandering mind she asked her driver to take her to her apartment. It was all too much. The voices were too loud and the lights were so bright. Every word from the officers and agents had been like arrows going through and hitting Lena over and over and over. Whenever Lena got like this Lex would turn off the lights in her room and give her the only hoodie Lillian allowed him to own. It was probably the only hoodie to ever be in the Luthor household. He would promise no one would go in and dutifully guarded the door. Boxes had been a real help then. The less Lena was like that, the less Lillian hurt Lex for protecting Lena. Except now those boxes were likely the cause of this. Once you shift one poorly stacked pillar everything comes crashing down. Lena debated calling Brainy, but he was Kara's. He was certainly busy tonight with the DEO anyway.

Lena practically ran into her apartment and stripped off the dress that was strategically chosen for this evening. None of it mattered anymore. She stepped into the shower and let the warm water wash the day off. The tears wouldn't come anymore no matter how hard she searched the mess of feelings of the night. Lena laughed an empty laugh. She laughed hard enough for her to have her side hurt.

'Lena Luthor forgets how to feel.' That would be a fun article to read in the tabloids.

Lena quieted down and turned the shower off. She sat on her bed and replayed the night in her head. If Kara was telling the truth, then she wanted Lena's love. She kept Supergirl a secret to pretend to be only Kara Danvers for Lena. Lex had been right that she had been willfully ignorant of Supergirl. It was right there. Lena had spent countless nights over at Kara's, no one goes to bed wearing glasses. If Lena was being honest with herself she had feelings for Kara Danvers and she knew that if she let herself believe she was Supergirl, then they'd have to deal with everything that came with it. Lena wasn't the best at dealing with anything of that sort. Kara had been wrong that Lena only loved Kara Danvers. She loved Supergirl too.

Lena closed her eyes and felt the hot tears on her eyelids.

No, she couldn't be in l- in anything with Kara. Human emotions were faulty and Lena knew she craved attention. That's all this was. Rationalizing failure with false love. Lena picked out a pair of jeans and a blouse, she had a feeling Kara would be stopping by after everything was wrapped up at the theater. The events of tonight didn't change anything, Kara would feel the same pain Lena felt. Kara had made her out to be a lovesick fool. Brainy had been wrong, boxes were where emotions belonged and Lena knew exactly how to perfect it.

\---

The air was cool on her skin as she re-entered Lcorp for the second time that day. She had dismissed all staff for the evening to ensure the building was empty again. Lena got a chill as she walked through the main door and couldn't help but feel a distinct feeling of deja vu. The last time she had done this Adam hadn't left the building, this time was going to be different. It had to be there was too much at stake. Her heart raced as she entered her lab and she willed herself to calm down, months of sleepless nights had led up to this and she couldn't have a hair out of place. She walked across her lab and the sound of her heels on the concrete reverberated through the room. After putting Adam in stasis she had closed off the half of the lab that housed the cryo equipment. The room had no less than three different layers of security. She walked through the door and the mustiness of the room hit her. She hadn't been back since the original incident since Lena had decided to monitor Adam's condition remotely.

There was one large containment unit in the back of the room where Adam was placed. It was attached by thick wires to a cylinder that was upright and had a light blue core that was the only thing that spilled light across the room. Adam had been transferred out of his cryo cylinder into the containment unit that once held Sam. Lena had refitted the unit to match the temperature necessary to keep Adam asleep. The plan was to inject Adam's still frozen body with the Harun-El supplement and then reanimate him as slowly as possible. With luck, he would remain unconscious for the whole procedure, but just in case Lena had also retrofitted the bed with DEO grade restraints. She was a little off-put with the fact that she could walk into the DEO ask for what she needed and have it be given to her without question. Lena decided it was best to take as much advantage of it as she could. With luck the Harun-El supplement would quell the superpowered abilities, but it was better to be safe than sorry.

Lena hit a few buttons on her tablet to begin taking Adam out of stasis. She grabbed the bag filled with the supplement and other nutrients and walked over to the cylinder. Lena closed her eyes and took a deep breath before plugging in the right tubes and watched as the bag drained slowly. There was no turning back after this. After the bag had drained it's contents Lena watched Adam's vitals begin to register as his body temperature climbed steadily. She saw as his chest slowly began to rise and fall, Lena subconsciously matched his breathing pattern as she watched intently. It was all working as planned, his vitals were on track to be near perfect, the supplement was being accepted by his body, and it looked like the original Harun-El was being neutralized. Lena unclenched her jaw as she slowly let herself believe that she'd done it, she'd saved him.

And then he woke up

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm glad the supercorp scene I had pre-written for supercorptober fit as well as I hoped since it was the first I wrote while thinking about this whole fic


	3. A Ghost Of Blissful Feelings

One of Lena's biggest issues with planning a project was going over every possible scenario. Realistically, she knew there would be trial and error in any good scientific endeavor. That didn't mean there wasn't room for foreseeable carelessness. It had exasperated Jack to no end when they worked together.

"Just do it, Lena!" Jack would often say with ridiculous arm motions.

No doubt a reference to some internet phenomenon.

Memories of Jack were often sad, but this one still gave Lena motivation from time to time. On the surface, foresight would be an asset, especially for a researcher. In reality, it led Lena to go down a rabbit hole of overthinking one ridiculous scenario after another. Recently, various projects had cropped up and garnered her attention which was naturally time-consuming, leaving little time to overthink. Hope had also helped quite a bit at running hundreds of scenarios in minutes and keeping Lena informed. She had left much of the micromanaging to her which was much to the relief of her head scientists since she didn't request hourly updates of each project anymore. While science was about grand discovery, that didn't mean surprises were necessary or efficient.

This precedence and expectation left Lena at a loss when she was caught off guard when Adam woke up. The upload, thaw, and rehabilitation were on track to have Adam waking up in about two days.

_He woke up after twenty minutes. _

Lena was baffled, she had run various simulations both in her head and in Andrea's simulator. Even Supergirl couldn't be conscious at the temperature he was currently at. Coupled with the heavy sedation and low vitals it was worse than a surprise it was _impossible._

Adam's body pulled against the restraints and his body hovered a few inches off the bed. His eyes were closed and his face was twisted in a look of pain and confusion as if he didn't know why he couldn't open his eyes. The Harun-El began pulsing black through his veins and he opened his mouth in a silent scream. Lena ran to up the sedatives and bring the temperature down as low as it could go without frying his nerves. He stopped pulling against the restraints and lay still and calm like before. Lena checked the temperature in the room and saw that while it was back to it's original below freezing levels, his body temperature was steadily rising. His heart rate and oxygen intake were doing the same and rising steadily to mirror the vitals Lena took when he first showed up. After a couple more minutes his body was impossibly normal in comparison to the environment. Lena was going back and forth on whether to stop the flow of sedatives and wake him up or go ahead with the original timeline, but she didn't have a chance to make a decision before Adam's eyes were open and he was sitting up.

It was straight out of a cliched horror movie when the embalmer turns their back on the dead body before it gets reanimated. His movements were slow and robotic worst of all his eyes were still black. He effortlessly broke the two restraints that were holding his wrists to the bedside handles before sliding his feet off the side of the bed. As soon as his feet hit the floor and he attempted to stand up his whole body crumpled and fell to the ground. Without thinking, Lena opened the unit and a blast of cold air met her as she rushed to Adam's side. He was passed out without a scratch on him despite hitting the concrete floor hard with his head. Lena grabbed him and haphazardly shifted him back onto the bed as gently as she could. He had ripped out the two IVs she had and the location of their entry point was already closed. Lena stepped out of the unit and closed it back up before grabbing her audio log.

> _Continuation of processing test subject 0331 is in progress. Cryogenesis was successful in preservation of subject for 8 months. Timetable to bring the subject out of cryogenesis was altered to 15 minutes and 33 seconds. Further research required as to why. _
> 
> _Reanimation successful with vital levels holding steady. The attempt of supplement 3.4 to quell extra-human powers was unsuccessful while Harun-El previously in the body has been neutralized. _

\---

Kara's mind reeled as she replayed the events of the evening over and over. Alex's advice to leave things be for the night had been a moot point after seeing Lena. She looked stunning in her dress but had an air of sadness around her that Kara had felt since Lex's death. Lena had kept her distance after he was gone which left her feeling helpless. All she wanted to do was hold Lena and be there for her. For years she had done her best to be there while letting her have the space she needed. A large part of her had hoped that she would open up to her sooner, but it wasn't her place to rush Lena's grief. People handled grief in different ways and Kara was familiar with Lena throwing herself into her work. Still, it left Kara feeling a little lost. She didn't often listen out for other people's heartbeats or conversations. It often felt like an invasion of privacy, but she still felt like it was her responsibility to keep a close eye on those she cared about. After revealing her identity to Lena and following up with her at her home Kara was tempted to keep an ear out for Lena just in case. There was something bothering her about Lena's reaction that she couldn't quite put her finger on. Lena's reaction was everything Kara had hoped it would be, more so she saw the fear of losing someone she loved were unfounded. Kara prided herself in knowing Lena like the back of her hand. Maybe she was just being paranoid.

Kara shook her head.

No, she wasn't going to listen out for Lena. If Lena needed her she needed to trust that she'd call for her.

\---

Lena kept a close eye on Adam's condition, she was unable to feed sedatives and nutrients intravenously anymore and had to rely on the fact that he would hopefully wake up soon. The only people she knew who had the equipment and know-how to permeate Kryptonian-like skin were DEO personnel. She eyed her phone on the bench and a fleeting thought of calling Kara flickered through her mind. No, she wasn't going to go crying for Supergirl to come and fix her mistake. Lena took a deep breath and continued taking down observations on her tablet as she paced the room. Visually, Adam hadn't changed at all. There was no sign of frostbite or cell deterioration anywhere on his person. His reaction to the supplement was the most curious thing. She began going through possible things she could have missed while keeping an eye on the clock. If Adam still had extra-human powers it would stand to reason that his metabolism would match Supergirl. While in cryogenesis he had been given nutrients as his readings required. Without those readings and vitals, Lena had to hazard a guess as to when his body would begin breaking down. She had seen a hungry Kara before and she wasn't eager to see Adam in a similar state.

Lena called in Hope to help parse through the information and determine what happened. Up until now, she had wanted to leave Hope out of this whole situation. While Eve's work on the Harun-El with Lex and herself would have been helpful, this was a personal endeavor that she couldn't stomach to share with them yet. After going through the data of the 15 minutes prior to Adam breaking out Lena had pinpointed why the reintegration had sped up so much. Lena was working on the calculations of having Adam's body process 20 CC's of the Harun-El supplement an hour. This was based on an average body's ability to process fluids. Not much research had been done on a body previously in cryogenics. Not to mention the deadly levels of Harun-El Lena wasn't able to drain from his body. This had caused Adam to absorb all of the supplements at once. It was a blessing in disguise since those high levels had combatted the adverse effects of the old Harun-El. If things had gone according to plan and Adam had absorbed it at even a fraction slower than he had then Lena would have killed him twice. An unfortunate side effect of that was the extra-human powers weren't neutralized but amplified. So far he had experienced levitation, superhuman strength, accelerated healing, and impenetrable skin. He also seemed to be able to maintain internal equilibrium given that he was able to stay an average human temperature during the containment unit's lowered cryo-temp.

Lena let out a breath that she didn't realize she had been holding. She knew she wasn't in the clear yet since Adam hadn't woken up yet. An image flickered in her mind of his pitch-black eyes. While Lena could reasonably repair his body, she had no idea if she would be able to bring back his mind. To occupy herself while she was waiting she decided to order Big Belly Burger. She hesitated before calling her driver, but decided to call him anyway since he had fulfilled weirder requests than buying fast food and leaving it in the Lcorp lobby at 3 a.m.. While it probably wouldn't satisfy Adam it would hopefully be a good welcome back meal. She also set out to grab the box of old protein bars Supergirl had stashed in her lab. Those would more likely hold him over until she better determined his needs.

As she stood in the elevator after grabbing what she needed her stomach began to twist into knots. New what-if situations began popping up in her head. What if he doesn't wake up, what if he hates his powers, what if he turns out like Lex. The realization dawned on Lena that she didn't really know Adam. She thought she knew Eve after knowing her for years. She thought she knew Kara who had been her best friend for longer than that. She started to feel foolish in her arrogance that a single question on a questionnaire could weed out all bad candidates. The elevator rang out and the doors opened, pulling Lena out of her spiral. It wasn't like Lena to second-guess herself so often. Although, doubt sows seeds for future mistakes and no matter what, all Lena seemed to be making was mistakes. As if to cement this idea she heard a loud bang from where the containment unit was. Lena nearly dropped the bags she was holding and ran towards the room calling out for a status report from Eve.

**Author's Note:**

> feedback appreciated  
tumblr: superdudezz


End file.
